Dario Maestripieri

The annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience brings together neuroscientists from around the world to discuss cutting edge research relevant to their fields of study.

Unfortunately, this year’s conference will be known less for advancements in neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders and more for the comments of one participant—evolutionary biologist Dr. Dario Maestripieri from the University of Chicago. On Sunday, October 14, 2012 Dr. Maestripieri posted the following message on Facebook,

In case you are unfamiliar with this study, Moss-Raucusin et al., determined that scientific faculty members hire fewer women, offer lower wages, and provide less mentorship to female scientists compared to their male counterparts. In other words, female scientists, even with credentials identical to their male counterparts, are often viewed as incompetent. Prior to this study, the misconception for a lack of tenured females in STEM fields was due to family obligations. It was incorrectly hypothesized that women were at a disadvantage since the critical period in an associate scientist’s career typically coincides with starting a family, thus resulting in lost research year(s) necessary for tenure procurement. Moss-Raucusin’s study has driven a rather large nail into the coffin of that theory.

Why do I bring this up? After all, Dr. Maestripieri’s comments did not state any gender bias. Rather, his comments have taken us further down the rabbit hole. These comments dig directly at a rarely spoken but prevailing fear of many women in STEM. Look unattractive and colleagues won’t pay attention to you. Look too attractive and your research won’t be taken seriously. There’s no better example than Nobel laureate Dr. James Watson’s comments in The Double Helix regarding Rosalind Franklin “neglecting to emphasize her feminine qualities.” I think we all know what happened with her X-ray crystallography data.

The most disconcerting aspect of all of this isn’t that the comments were said (obviously, one must look past the blatantly sexist remarks… made at an international convention… with 28,000 of his peers), but rather Dr. Maestripieri’s role at the University of Chicago. Whether it be lab managers, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, associate or tenured professors, Dr. Maestripieri has had a role in determining their career progression. His feelings towards attractive women may or may not have influenced hiring or promotions (either consciously or subconsciously), regardless, Dr. Maestripieri has shown extreme bias towards sexualizing female colleagues while simultaneously denigrating their scientific prowess.

Dr. Maestripieri, with your Facebook post, you have single handedly trivialized every achievement made by female scientists. Maybe it’s time to hang up your Journal of Neuroscience subscription for some other periodicals.